Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Good afternoon, members of the committee. My name is David Fewer. I'm the director of CIPPIC, which is the Samuelson-Glushko Canadian Internet Policy and Public Interest Clinic at the centre for law, technology and society at the University of Ottawa.
We are Canada's first and only public interest technology law clinic. We're based in the university. We essentially bring lawyers with expertise in technology law issues together with students to advocate on behalf of the public interest on technology law issues.
Our work resides at the heart of Canada's innovation policy agenda. We work on everything from privacy to data governance and artificial intelligence, network neutrality, state surveillance, smart cities policies and, of course, copyright policy. Our work essentially is to ensure respect for Canadians' rights on technology policy, as governments and courts respond to Canadians' use of ever-changing, new technologies.
I want to start with two background comments with respect to approaching copyright policy. Number one is the concept of balance. It's been long settled now in Canadian copyright policy that balance is essential to the overall scheme and objective of the act. That means Canadian copyright policy must be directed towards achieving a balance between providing a just reward for creators and owners of copyright works and the public interest in the dissemination of works more broadly. This guiding principle is basically the touchstone of copyright policy and should be central to any review of the Copyright Act.
That brings me to my second background point, which is the USMCA. The recent conclusion of the renegotiated NAFTA agreement upsets the balance in Canadian copyright law policy. This is not the place to go through an extensive review of the changes to copyright law that will be required by the legislation, but three that jump out to me were a copyright term extension, the enhanced digital lock provisions which were further unsettling a troubling area of Canadian copyright policy, and the new customs enforcement rights, revamping an area of law that we had just within the last two years upgraded.
These are just some of the benefits to copyright owners that are promised in this trade agreement. We would ask the committee to engage in these hearings with a view to resolving or restoring the balance that's at the heart of Canadian copyright policy.
Substantively, I want to talk about three specific points. One is digital locks. To the extent that this can be done by Canadian copyright policy, we should be looking to roll back the overprotection of the digital lock provisions. There's an incredible imbalance between the rights that copyright owners enjoy with respect to digital locks versus the rights they enjoy with respect to the content itself. The content itself respects a healthy balance. It has a nod towards future creativity and innovation policies. The digital lock provisions do not.
Many provisions of the Canadian Copyright Act intended to benefit future creators and innovators are locked out where a digital lock is used, and it's difficult to justify that on any kind of reasoned analysis of Canadian copyright policy.
We would ask that the USMCA provisions be studied with a view to determining how best to maintain fair and flexible dealings with content in the face of digital locks. Essentially we say that draconian digital lock provisions deter and undermine Canadian innovation policy, and they undermine digital security. This is not just a user issue. It's an innovation issue. Creators such as documentary filmmakers and new forms of artists—appropriation artists, for example—encounter difficulties in the face of digital locks. That content is beyond their reach.
We would also ask that we look to the extent to which we can restrict criminal circumvention to commercial activity because of the tremendous disincentive of criminal prosecution for innovation and artistic work in the face of digital locks.
Second, I want to turn to fair dealing. CIPPIC has long asked that Canada look to make the list of fair-dealing purposes illustrative, rather than exhaustive. If the dealing is fair, it ought to be legal. That's the bottom line. Failing that, CIPPIC would support extending fair dealing to transformative dealings, to recognize different kinds of authors, such as appropriation artists and documentary filmmakers. Transformative dealings aren't covered well, within the existing fair dealing paradigm.
We would also echo the repeated calls that this committee has heard to extend fair dealing to what I'll call AI activities. We would look for a specific exception for informational analysis.
Finally, related to fair dealing, CIPPIC would call for no contractual overrides of fair dealing. We've talked about privacy already. Our privacy rights have a very difficult time with terms of use, which have privacy policies that no consumer or user ever sees, thereby stripping our privacy rights away. Copyright, which is an innovation policy, should not suffer from the same burden.
Other jurisdictions have done this, particularly within the context of the data mining exception, in jurisdictions such as Britain. Canada should be looking to this too.
Finally, I have a brief comment on the notice and notice system. CIPPIC supports the changes to the system that were recently tabled in Bill C-86 to curb abuses of that system, but we would actually echo Mr. Kerr-Wilson's comments about the need for adverse consequences for reckless or deliberate misuse of that system.
Thank you.